JEDDAH: Journalism ethics across the world demand journalists be unbiased, objective and accurate while reporting news. However, these rules are often ignored when the international media report on Saudi Arabia, Arabs or Muslims.
“There is a misconception and misunderstanding about Saudi Arabia, women’s rights in the Kingdom, the freedom of the press and other issues. Many Western journalists are ignorant. They base their information on negative stereotypes and insist on portraying the same images without reporting objectively,” said Maha Akeel, managing editor of The Journal, the print magazine of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
Akeel said foreign reporters who visit the Kingdom admit their surprise at the good they see but fail to report them. “They don’t report that. They assume we only want to trick them,” said Akeel.
Fiona Hill, an Australian anthropologist and executive officer of the Australia-Arab Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said people default to stereotypes. “That’s what media outlets default to. Humans by nature default to stereotypes. Also, some reporters are governed by editors who are governed by their bosses who head monopolies. We have some serious issues with media monopoly in the world. It’s an open fact,” said Hill.
The stereotypical images about Saudi Arabia and Saudis are not fictional. “Stereotypes don’t fall out of the sky. They come out of reality,” she said, explaining that society is dynamic and organic. “It is not static, so some of what is portrayed in the media is a reflection of Saudi society, but it’s not the only reflection,” added Hill.
In a recent bold advertisement campaign, entitled “Rahma” (Mercy), Kaswara Al-Khatib, managing director of Full Stop Advertising, created a series of TV advertisements highlighting the abuse of foreign domestic workers to encourage people to show their employees respect.
“But the Western media’s concern was to create a big bang and not be honest and share everything,” said Al-Khatib. “No one said that the campaign was a positive step to admitting one’s mistakes. They focused only on what’s controversial and negative. They took my words out of context,” he said, advising the international media to “be honest and share everything.”
Menwer Al-Haraki, uncle of a 19-year-old Syrian schoolboy beaten to death by two Canadians and a Jordanian in a schoolyard brawl in Jeddah, was “disgusted” when Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper misrepresented his quotes. The uncle, who spoke to the newspaper on behalf of the boy’s father because he was fluent in English, was inaccurately quoted as saying the father intended to forgive his son’s killers with certain conditions
“It was untrue and misleading. The reporter’s job is to accurately quote people and not give false information. People’s rights could be at stake. However, these people wanted to offend the Kingdom in anyway possible,” said Al-Haraki.
In February 2006, an Austrian court sentenced British historian David Irving to three years for denying the Holocaust. In December 2007, Saudi Fouad Al-Farhan was arrested in Jeddah for comments he made on his website.
“Why was the case of Al-Farhan covered extensively and critically in Western media outlets and not the case of Irving when both were arrested for practicing freedom of speech?” asked Khaled Abdullah, a 35-year-old IT employee. “Western media has double standard. It scrutinizes everything Saudi Arabia does, but it doesn’t go near anything related to what is sensitive to the Jews.”
Reem Talal, a 24-year-old MA student in Chicago, said Saudi Arabia is frequently misrepresented in the international media. “Saudi Arabia is frequently viewed as an oppressive country. A country that doesn’t give women their rights and where every man has an oil well in his backyard,” said Reem.
“It’s exaggerated and overblown to the point where people who’ve never been outside their respective countries and who don’t have any sort of acquaintances from the Kingdom don’t know the truth and just think that Saudi Arabia is full of terrorists.”
But why would Western media outlets report biased and inaccurate information about Saudi Arabia or Saudis despite their media ethics demanding high standards of journalism?
“There are many reasons why a newspaper or media institution would want to deliberately present a false image about Saudi Arabia. Some might be careless in their research and collection of data. Some might have their own agendas. All I know is that problems that exist in Saudi Arabia exist everywhere,” said Jowhara Al-Angari, founding member of the National Society for Human Rights.
In her book “Culturally Speaking: Promoting Cross-Cultural Awareness in a Post-9/11 World,” American writer Mary Coons said many Americans feel the Islamic world is their enemy. “But the Islamic world is not our enemy. Ignorance is our enemy,” she wrote.
Coons, who travels extensively to Bahrain where she spends about five months in a year, quotes people she interviewed in the book saying that the American media show and tell Americans only what the media want them to know.
“I think we have all learned to take everything we hear with a pinch of salt,” said American Michelle LaGue.
“If you are proactive, and you really want to know the real story, you can find out.”
Joan Corey agreed. “The same thing can be said for newspapers. Certain newspapers are more politically leaning toward one type versus the other, as are most television news stations.”
“The problem with the Western journalists is that their way of thinking is quite different from ours,” said Turki Al-Dakheel. “The main problem is that they try to compare us with their lifestyle in the West,” he said
Although these journalists talk about the importance of democracy, they are not aware of the fact that many people in the Kingdom are happy with their present life that draws Western criticism.
“We think that we present Western journalists a glittering picture of Saudi Arabia by talking about positive aspects. Later we come to know that they had spoken to others and understood other faces of the country,” he pointed out.
“We should understand that our society is more open to others than before ... We hope they would try to understand us more and find out that there are different groups of people amongst us including rightists, leftists and moderates,” he explained.
“We are a new society. We have distinguished qualities as well as defects. We are not just evil as we are not always angels. We are a mix of both. We hope they would try to understand us in the right manner,” he added.
According to a study done by King Saud University, entitled “Misrepresentation of the Arabs in the Western Media,” Arabs are currently seen as terrorists and murderers in the Western media. “Mistrust and abhorrence have become American common feelings toward the distorted image of Arabs. The unconscious wish not to separate stereotypes from reality governs every aspect of Arab-Western relations... Why do western thinkers insist on misrepresentations of Muslims and Arabs?”.
